I just setup a new Windows 2012 R2 server with SQL Server 2012, and hooked it up to Salesforce with Informatica Cloud.

The configuration of the connections was very easy, as was the mapping of source to target fields.

However when I tried to run the mapping I got the following error:

“Internal error. The DTM process failed to start due to the following error: [CreateProcess error=14001, The application has failed to start because its side-by-side configuration is incorrect. Please see the application event log or use the command-line sxstrace.exe tool for more detail”

Apparently this is just down to the Informatica Secure Cloud Agent not having VC++ binaries installed. This is rather confusing given there isn’t very much on this error message. Anyway I found and installed the the VC++ and all worked well.

Part 1 and Part 2 of this series was about how to create a simple site in the Salesforce.com Site.com Content Management System.

I left the Publish part for Part 3, since this can be a discrete action that a business may want to execute in isolation from the content generation.

You probably want to have a look at the simple ‘Site Configuration’ panel, which will give you some options around ‘click jacking’ (preventing the rendering of your site in an iFrame from another site), as well as allowing you to set the HTML files that will be used for the default ‘Home’ page as well as the ‘404 Not Found’ page.

‘Enable Anonymous Preview’ is useful if you want to test from a variety of devices.

There are a few more panels which provide the ability to:

Custom properties : Constant values that could be reused throughout the site, such as a phone number

Branding properties : Expressions for use in Stylesheets

IP Restrictions : Restrict access to specific assets in your site based on an IP range

URL Redirects : Single place to manage redirects

User Roles : All users with access to Site.com will be listed here already

Languages : Add other languages variants to your site

Unfortunately my Developer edition does not allow publishing as part of the licensing, however if I had another edition then I would see a ‘Publish Changes…‘ button on the toolbar. (Note to Salesforce: Why not just have the button disabled? Hiding it makes no sense at all).

You should then be able to see your site published. The following screenshots are cheating, since I am just using Preview, but it should look exactly the same.

It is also important to note that you can duplicate and export entire sites, so it is possible to experiment as much as you like in your developer instance and later export to production when you are ready.

Site.com manages basic web hosting quite effectively. It is not versatile enough for complex web hosting, and in a way it is probably a good thing because at this level of functionality it is possible to give business users a direct method to publish content.

I would still probably advise a technical administrator actually oversees the process however, since you are restricted to 25 sites, which means inevitably you will get reuse, deletions and overwriting of existing content.

There is a content management system feature of Salesforce.com that doesn’t get that much attention: Site.com

Site.com can be used to host public facing websites on the Salesforce.com platform. It is rather lightweight and not really intended for complex content management requirements.

Currently there are some limits. All non-Development editions are limited to 40GB of bandwidth every day, with between 500,000 and 1,000,000 daily views depending on the edition you are using. This actually covers quite a lot of small to medium publishing scenarios. If you think this could be too low for you then you should put some serious consideration into a higher end CMS product.

There are also no workflows for publishing, which is rather important to those who want to move the mechanics of publishing to the realm of the Business User.

The Audience Builder in the Salesforce Marketing Cloud is a way to create specific groups of people to send emails to, as well as further split that group up into smaller more targeted groups for different email content.

There is an official overview on the ExactTarget help pages (Public), as well as an online course with video walkthroughs in the course catalog of the 3sixty website (private). The videos, although professionally created, are a bit hard to follow owing to the user interface having been recently revamped. There is also a ‘certification’ exam, which is rather easy if you had been paying attention through the course. I can see the exam being useful if you need to verify if someone actually knows how Audience Builder hangs together.

The first question would be where to find it? It does have to be enabled by ExactTarget, and if it has then you should see it under Data & Analytics (and if you can’t then you need to contact ExactTarget).

Before diving in, it is probably helpful to get familiar with some of the terms that are used in Audience Builder, such as Universe, Population and Contact. I made a quick cheat sheet to help remember, although if your attributes and dimensions are already set up then you just have to use them rather than know how to define them.

Once you have that, then you must understand how Segments work on your resultant Audience. You should note how Priority between segments work, as well as Waterfall suppression of which Audience members enter which segment. This will help avoid unexpected questions about why certain members were not included in an intended email mailing.

If you’re now comfortable with that, it is worth to just look at the Audience Builder screen to get an idea how it works. The Overview screen just shows a long list of all currently defined Audiences:

If you go ahead and click any of these, then the Summary tab has everything that you would expect, which is a high level breakdown of your Audience, including how much of the Population your Audience is using and what is its current Segmentation:

The Filter tab is also straightforward. It defines the rule or rules that make up your Audience before segmenting. In this case all males between certain ages:

The Segment screen allows you to further split up your Audience. You don’t need to actually define any Segments, however you can edit or add new Segments here if you wish. You can check the impact (in terms of Audience numbers) of any change here. Again, Waterfall Suppression comes in effect here, with priority to the lowest numbered Segments in the list.

Finally when you are ready, you can Preview or Publish your Audience on the Publish tab:

Once your Audience is published, then you are ready to start defining emails to send to them, as well as particular variations on each segment.

There is a good deal more detail if you drill down into each screen, however I feel that the online course will do it more justice. If you have access to the Salesforce Marketing Cloud then you should be able to see all the details in the associated 3sixty course.